Absence
by liliaeth
Summary: Buffy takes a dive in a harsh hellish world without Spike (B/S)
1. Default Chapter

Title: Absence(1/?)  
Author: Lore and Mally  
Summary: Buffy's pulled into a dark hellish world  
Disclaimer: Don't own, please don't sue

Buffy stood in her room trying to decide what to wear for the nighttime picnic everyone was going on.  
It had been a few weeks since the wedding that wasn't.  
Two weeks that Anya had just disappeared ... and one ... 

Xander had been broken when he'd seen her again. A demon, a vengeance demon, ready to curse him. 

Instead ... She'd stood there, ready to put her anger on him, but even then she couldn't ... she couldn't do anything except break apart. She'd disappeared after that. 

Xander was still not speaking, not daring to say a word. 

Willow had finally managed to drag him along, getting him to come along, even if only for a full out Scooby picnic. One that just happened to include Spike. Buffy had managed to convince her that they needed to include him. 

None of the others had understood why, but she'd been so certain of it. 

Spike had been a part of the gang. He'd been a friend, till they started discarding him. It was time he was part of the gang again, time he was treated as a friend and maybe that way ... they could all stop him from committing stupid things like trying to sell those demon eggs. 

So here she was with no idea what to wear. 

It couldn't be too slutty, she couldn't make Spike think she'd thought to hard about what she'd wear on a date ... picnic with him there ... and her friends of course. It couldn't be to casual either cause … Who knows why, it just couldn't … 

Spike …

She'd have to tell the others about Spike and her … or Spike would. But she had to find the right time. Maybe this picnic would finally be that time, with all of them together … maybe. 

Something tingled in her ear. She looked around and saw nothing, so she grabbed for another shirt. She turned around again and stared up at it. A blue glowing ball that hung in the air behind her. 

She stared up, unable to look away, her mind somehow pulled towards it, feeling herself floating. 

Light surrounded her, poked at her, pushing itself into her until she was the light and the light was her and she couldn't stop falling. 

An endless tumbling, rolling, falling that seemed to be eternal... until it stopped and she just crashed down on the ground, staring up at the darkness around her. It hurt to move, every inch of her body strained, in pain.

She cradled her arms, her ribs ... nothing seemed to be broken, but how could she know, if she could barely get up. 

She wandered on, numb to the cold and stared up at the sky or where the stars were supposed to be ... but there was nothing there but an eerie glow that only seemed to enhance the darkness. 

She could hear screaming, but was to numb to go after them and find out whose screams they were.

Her luck was against her though and the screams came towards her in the form of a young girl. Janice, a friend of Dawn's. What was she doing here? 

It didn't matter as she stretched herself up, bearing the pain and facing what came up. 

The first thing she noticed of him were his eyes. Yellow, dangerous, the eyes of the predator with none of the kindness she was used to seeing in him.

He was dressed all in leather, a smirk on his face. His nails were dyed black, touching his lips. 

"Xander." 

He looked at her. Hate in his eyes.

"Look at the little hero, managed to get out of her cage did she?" 

Buffy backed of, trying to get away, something grabbed her from behind. She turned around and stared at the face of a vamped out Willow. She could see Janice's body lying there, her blood splattered around the tiny frame of her body.

Her protection hadn't mattered after all. 

Xander stood in front of her, lifting up her chin. There was an insane gleam in his eyes. 

"Brave little girls like you shouldn't be wandering around Buff. Who knows what bad ugly things they could run into." 

Buffy was too weak to fight Willows hold, to weak to fight as Xander pulled something over her neck. Something that cut into her skin. Willow let go without warning and she fell over, barely held up by a rope attached to the collar Xander had pulled over her neck. He didn't let her have time to get back up again as he pulled the rope and she could feel sharp edgy things cut into her throat. She had no other choice but to be pulled along, still to out of it to really put up a fight. 

Somewhere along the way she crumbled down, her body to tired to keep on walking. She could feel herself rest in Xander's arms. Good steady reliable Xander, who was now a merciless killer. She could see the darkness around her, hear the screams that after a while became an ongoing background noise that went on and on and on.

Fires blazed around her, she just stared at it all, unable to comprehend it as anything other than hell. 

Hell with Angel as it's king.

She couldn't believe her eyes as Xander threw her down in front of him. Seeing him, knowing him near, and evil. He just laughed as Xander chained her up. He didn't even try to act superior, just looked at her and chained her back up again, petting her. She wanted to turn away, he just pulled her leash closer, kissing her for a single second before throwing her away again. Like a dangerous animal, chained and tamed.

They all laughed at her and she knew that this was her place now, her hell.

To be continued


	2. 

Title: Absence(2/?)  
Author: Lore and Mally  
Summary: Buffy is pulled into a dark hellish world  
Disclaimer: Don't own, please don't sue

Buffy felt sore as she woke up on the floor ... again. Still this was a different kind of sore, not a bit like the soreness she usually had after a night with Spike. More painful, more strained. She couldn't feel him lying next to her either and there was nothing covering her.

It was cold as well.

Footsteps clamored over the dark stone floor, was it Spike?  
She tried to get up, only to feel the pull of something around her neck. If only her mind would clear up. She could hear it, a cold muffled rush of scattering feet. Her neck hurt as she moved; her skin scratched at whatever was holding her neck. She reached out to it and could feel the harsh leather cut into her flesh. There was something sharp, steel that cut into her neck each time she moved an inch too fast.

Something touched her foot, Buffy pulled it in and looked up at Tara. The young Wiccan was mopping the floor with a dry and dirty rag. She didn't seem to notice that she only wiped the dirt around and around. She didn't even seem to notice Buffy sitting there. Or anything else for that matter.

Her hair was filthy and knotted and her eyes stood empty, completely so.

Buffy tried to reach out to her, but felt the chains pulling her back.

"Tara?"

No this couldn't be, but it was. The eerie silence as Tara moved around the room, the sound of her footsteps slumping as she made her way.

Buffy tried to pull her chain out. It struggled, but she had to get free, she just had to. This couldn't be real...

Finally the thing shot out, making her fall because of the force she'd put in it. She scrambled up; why was the world still turning. No reasons, no big fight, just the need to get away. 

All those times she'd told Spike to leave, all those times she'd told him that she didn't need his help. And the one time she actually did, he wasn't here. Where ever here might be.

The door was only a few steps away, yet it seemed to take her an eternity to get there.

It was then that she made her second mistake of the day. She hesitated. Only for one second, but still she'd hesitated. And as she had, it was over.

Willow.

A chained wolflike creature followed her, bound by a leash, trembling for the dark vampire that was it's master. The creature jumped at her and in that one second Buffy could see its eyes. It's human eyes impinged with pain.

Oz.

At that moment Buffy was completely pinned to the floor, that's when she heard the clapping. Turning her eyes upward to the door she saw, no it couldn't be.

Angel.

Angelus smiled sardonically, "Well my love, trying to leave so soon? Before you and I had time to get to know each other again."

Buffy almost stopped breathing. A vehement no kept rambling through her brain, over and over and over again.

It had been bad enough when Angel had been playing Angelus for Faiths benefit, but this...

Even though it had been years since ... Even...

God no.

She wanted to say something witty, something smart. Something, anything to show she didn't fear him...

Nothing came her to mind.

Well Buff cat got your tongue? You should use it before I rip it out and give it to Oz to play with. Angel's laugh sounded harsh and bitter."

Buffy just acted instinctively. Kicking Oz away, she felt a short pang of guilt at hurting him. But there was no further thought, just action as she got up, ready to attack; the manacles around her hands, the chain around her neck, dangling down.

"Do you know what I'm going to do to you slayer? I'm going to show you how I tortured Giles first hand and "fuck" you until your nose bleeds, until you beg me to kill you and then I'm going to turn you, so I can always have you by my side.  
I'm going to fuck you like I did your mummy and by the time I'm finished you'll be begging me for a stake, which you'll never get."

Buffy's mouth fell open in shock, then a berserker anger overtook her. A hatred and rage darker than anything she'd ever faced.

She jumped on Angel, kicking him down. Then...

She stared at her hand, at the heart crumbling to dust that she'd just torn right out of Angels chest.

Was that her who'd pushed her fist into him, was that ... 

And as she heard Willow screaming, she could feel her mouth still standing open, entered by bits of Angel dust.

And then the world fell apart.

She glimpsed at the darkness and blinked.

Lights flared around her and she found herself in a plain looking room

A white room. An empty white room that seemed to have no end. Just whiteness.

There was nothing... anything it seemed for miles around her ... nothing but light.

A blinding light which she couldn't get away from, no matter how far she ran. 

She finally stopped, just standing there in the middle, half, quarter .... of nowhere.

"Someone, anyone!"

But no one seemed to be listening

Images appeared around her, faster and faster. Some clear in front of her, others vague and miles away. Dark hellish pictures of an eternity in pain. An eternity of suffering.

Her friends, her loved ones, no one seemed immune.

One instant of Angel losing his soul, the next of Willow killed and turned. 

Acathla, her mother tortured and raped in front of Giles.

And in the end when it all finally slowed down, a young black-haired girl stood alone on a tower.

Dawn, yet not Dawn.

Cut and bleeding... the blood opening a gate between dimensions. And hope in her eyes as a lone woman came to her rescue from the dark of the abyss.

And even as that hope flared up it was cut to bits with the slash of a knife through the child's neck.

Instant death.

And Buffy crumbled under Faiths pain, under her sister Slayers broken heart as she was forced to sacrifice her only link to life, her only hope for salvation... all to save a world that was doomed anyway.

Buffy looked away, away from the falling figure, away from the images, away from hell until she was crumbled down on the ground.

"Have you seen?"

Buffy cried, her body trembling with every sob.

"Have you seen?"

"Why did ... Who the hell are you?"

She crawled up, facing whomever had taken her here.

"We are."

"Are what? A small Texan behind the Wizard of Oz? Show yourself damn it."

There was a moment of silence, then.

"We are."

Buffy couldn't take it, not like this, not now.

"Yeah well, you can just 'be' somewhere else. Same with the 'were' and the 'to be'. What the hell was that?"

"The world as the vampire Angelus made it."

But yet, ... Angel would never do that. Angelus might though. Angel without a soul ...

"Demon soul, human soul, not much of a difference. Just two sides of the same coin Warrior."

Buffy just snorted at that. She knew what she knew, she'd seen the difference. Hadn't she?"

"We thought Angelus was the prophesized dark warrior-savior. That his role in the world would determine the final balance in the battle between good and evil.

"Your point being?"

She'd heard this tune before.

"We made a mistake."

To be continued


	3. 

Title: Absence(3/?)  
Author: Lore and Mally  
Summary: Buffy is pulled into a dark hellish world  
Disclaimer: Don't own, please don't sue

Buffy couldn't help but break out laughing at that point. Everything was so crazy already, she couldn't seem to find any other way to react to the almost pouty tone in the ethereal voice.

It wasn't just that insanity seemed almost welcome about now. It wasn't that her life wasn't crazy enough as it were. But this ...

"How could you let that happen?"  
She grabbed a hold of herself, pulling herself up.  
"Everyone, my friends, Dawn, mom... All the stops eh..."

Then she suddenly remembered, with all the images. Surely if they'd intended her darkest nightmare, why had they forgotten...?

"What about Spike?"

Nothing but silence.

"What happened to Spike? Where was he?"

They didn't seem to be about to answer and the most annoying part was that she couldn't even turn her back on them, cause ... well you had to know where someone was before you could turn your back on them.

"We are order. We are balance."

Buffy just snickered at that.   
"Get over yourself already. What happened to Spike? Did ... did Angel kill him too?"

"History is a game of rules warrior, of boundaries, of controll."

"Once again with the 'So what?'"

This game was starting to tire her and if they didn't come to the point pretty soon...

"It was not supposed to happen this way. You and the warrior Angel. He was supposed to be guided to the cause. You were supposed to die at the hands of the master. That ... is what was prophesized."

Buffy frowned at them, "So you're angry that I didn't die as I was supposed to?"

"You are a wild card. You are not supposed to be here."

"Well then, give it a big whoop for Wild cards."

"The rules no longer operate within boundaries. Wild cards have been inserted. You ... the vampire..."

"And I thought you'd finally decided Angel wasn't ..."

They didn't let her continue.  
"Not the vampire with a soul. He was destined, he was prophesized. The vampire Spike."

Buffy looked around her eyes wide.

"So you're saying Angel was supposed to be the one with the big destiny and then me and Spike decided to play outside the rules?" she smiled a bit. "I think I like that."  
She raised her head a bit, wondering once again.  
"What did you do to Spike?"  
There was a bit of a blooming anger underneath her voice. Not yet fullgrown, but ready to burst out at the earliest reason.

"'We' did nothing Warrior.  
The prophecies were set.  
The lines were taken.  
We were wrong. We did not see. The wild cards upset the game."  
The ethereal voice seemed almost hesitant to get to the point itself.  
"The vampire's absence is not a symptom of this world. It is it's cause.

Buffy stared around, disbelieving.  
"Again with the huh?"

"The father would kill the son."

Buffy had absolutely no idea how to react to that ... what the hell did that have to do with it.

"The vampire with a soul was granted a son. The son was lost to time. The son grew and was killed, not by the fathers hands, but by his inactions. The vampire with a soul attempted to save the son, but in doing so, he doomed the world."

Vampire with a soul? Angel? But what did that have to do with Spike. Oh God no. It couldn't be. She had to be wrong, right?  
"You mean..."   
She couldn't imagine how much she hoped to be wrong.

"The vampire with a soul tried to save his son, to grant him life instead of death. Allowing him to live and die in a natural lifespan."

"And Spike never became a vampire?"

She couldn't help but feel cold all over. Angel had a son. A child, and somehow that baby had ended up being Spike. She wasn't even aware as she started to turn the implications out loud.  
"Spike was never turned. That whole hell hole... it happened cause Spike was never a vampire, because Angel saved him from becoming a vampire..."

For a moment no response came to light.  
Then.

"Yes."

Buffy heared their answer, smiled into oblivion and laughed.

To be continued  



End file.
